The proposed studies will be used as probe to begin our examination of the relationship between the steroid sulfotransferases, STI, STII, STIII, and the biological actions of glucocorticoids typified by cortisol. During the course of these studies we will purify and characterize the relevant sulfotransferases from rat liver, prepare antibodies, and firefly test several basic relationships between the enzymes and specific glucocorticoid effects. (A) Studies of endocrine control of sulfotransferase production will continue. We have implicated sex hormones in control of production of individual sulfotransferases. Now we will study the effects of glucocorticoids and other adrenal hormones. An admixture of surgical techniques and hormone therapy will be used. These studies will enable us to enrich liver with specific sulfotransferases to aid in purification efforts. They might also lead to clarification of the antagonism between sex hormones and glucocorticoids. (B) We will continue ongoing efforts to purify the relevant sulfotransferases. Endocrine manipulations will be combined with standard protein purification techniques to do this. (C) Studies of kinetic and physiochemical properties of the purified sulfotransferases will be carried out. They will utilize standard methods and will allow us to differentiate between the enzymes. (D) Antibodies for the sulfotransferases will be prepared by standard immunochemical methods. They will be utilized to develop a rapid method for estimating the amounts of individual sulfotransferases in tissue samples. (E) We will attempt to determine whether any of the sulfotransferases are equivalent to the cortisol binders we believe to be involved in cortisol-mediated enzyme induction. (F) Comparison between the corisol sulfotransferases of human liver and rat liver will be made. We will also attempt to determine if a relation similar to that found in rats exists between hypertension and sulfotransferase levels in human liver. For E and F we will utilize our enzyme fractionation methods and our immunochemical methods.